Quentin Blake is as large as life

Illustrator Quentin Blake has a marvellous new exhibition at the Foundling
Museum in London with works commissioned for hospitals.

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Illustrations of mothers and their babies underwater are among works of art displayed in a new exhibition of the work of Quentin Blake at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London. Included in the exhibition is Quentin Blake's biggest project 'Mothers and Babies Underwater' commissioned by the maternity unit of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Angers, France. Each of the 11 delivery suites will be animated by drawings by Blake based on the theme of the mother meeting her new baby.

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An exhibition of recent works by the illustrator Quentin Blake, commissioned by four hospitals in the UK and France, and called 'As Large As Life, is on show at the Foundling Museum in Holborn, London - including this illustration called Planet Zog.

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Quentin Blake's illustration Ordinary Life is part of an exhibition at London's Foundling Museum, which runs from 12 January 2012 until 15 April 2012. The drawing was commissioned for the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Unit. A new series of Quentin Blake prints have recently been installed in the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Clinic in Central London. Before making these works, Quentin met the young service-users and discussed his ideas with them. These drawings are, as always with this artist's work, a kind of celebration of everyday life.

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Part of the exhibition 'As Large as Life' by British illustrator, Quentin Blake, at the Foundling Museum, London.Photo: AP

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Quentin Blakes's series of drawings called Mother and Babies Underwater are on display at the Foundling Museum in London. Blake said of them: "he women and babies are swimming under water. A fanciful idea. It's not the fact they are swimming but moving easily, both free. They could be flying with a feeling of being released from labour."Photo: AP

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A member of public walks amongst the latest exhibition 'As Large as Life' by British illustrator, Quentin Blake, at the Foundling MuseumPhoto: AP

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The Foundling Museum's exhibition of Quentin Blake includes workshops and a reading corner decorated with Blake's recent designs for wallpapers produced by Osborne & Little.

The drawings had their origins in art for the South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. “I was asked to provide drawings for a refurbished wing for the elderly,” says Blake, who will be 80 this year. “I felt slightly qualified because I realised I was the same age as some of the patients. I had also done drawings for patients with mental health problems and a consultant later said she was astonished when one of her patients, who was deeply depressed, and who normally did not respond to anything, had looked at these pictures and reacted to them. That kind of thing is very encouraging.”

Encouraging enough to embark on four major series, which took five years to complete. They tackle complex subjects. Planet Zog, begun in 2007, features aliens and young people cheerfully swapping doctor and patient roles. “Going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet,” says Blake, “so these drawings are not just for the patients, they are for the relatives and friends of the patient, to help them. Someone who took their mother to the Chelsea hospital wrote to say my pictures were like 'sunshine in that gaunt building’.”

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The second series, called Our Friends In The Circus, was done in 2009 and depicts elderly people as jugglers, fire-eaters, tightrope-walkers and clowns. The pictures are on display at a mental health ward at Northwick Park Hospital. “I didn’t want to take it too seriously,” says Blake, “so it’s a parallel life. I drew people of my generation swinging from tree-to-tree and things of that kind, and it corresponds to their mental activities. In a strange way I was not personally involved despite the fact that I’m old and I had a brother who suffered in old age. I drew them in a detached way. It’s a bit like acting - imagining yourself into a situation. Old people still have skills they can use even if I show them doing things they can’t do anymore.”

The third group, Ordinary Life, is for the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Clinic in London. The drawings are a subtle celebration of everyday life, with characters doing seemingly mundane and pleasurable things such as having a picnic, feeding the birds or picking some apples.

“There was no brief,” says Blake, “so you go and talk to the patients and the consultants and you get a sense of what might be useful. Most of these pictures are what I call metaphorical in the sense that they are not real life. But these are for people who I think really want to be relaxed. They are people who are very tense about food, about their own appearances and tense about where they fit into things.

“So,” he continued, “what I wanted to have was pictures that were fairly relaxed and soft and slightly scruffy. The drawings don’t insist on food but there is food about as part of everyday life. I hope they are optimistic. There is a lot of humour in them but they are not making fun of anyone. They are a form of praise.”

The fourth and biggest project is called Mothers And Babies Underwater, and was completed last year. There are over 50 pictures in the Centre Hospitalier in Angers, France. “These were done for a newly-built hospital,” says Blake, “and the illustrations are a way of saying 'it’s going to be alright in a minute’. The women and babies are swimming under water. A fanciful idea. It’s not the fact they are swimming but moving easily, both free. They could be flying with a feeling of being released from labour. One of the staff in France said the important thing is the exchange of look between the mother and baby, who are meeting for the first time in a way. I would like to think that the idea of art in maternity wards will take off in England and in fact Scarborough Hospital have taken a set of about nine.”

The impressive Foundling Museum - which tells the story of Foundling Hospital founder Thomas Coram and which also houses work by William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel - has lots of ornate old pictures of worthy old bald men. Now, it also houses Blake’s vibrant, colourful illustrations of mothers in the corridors outside the main room.

It’s somehow fitting that these wonderful visions of motherhood came from Blake, an old bald man.

He was very careful about how he drew for As Large As Life, as he explained: “There are more than 60 pictures at the Foundling, and a lot were drawn with quills because that is a slightly scruffier way of drawing. It amuses me that quills are one of the oldest things you can draw with. Some of the mothers and baby ones were drawn with reed pens - bits of bamboo that have been sharpened at one end, dipped in Indian ink - and people have been using them for thousands of years. You get a more adventurous feel from a scratchy pen. A man in France recently sent me a Vulture’s wing feather sharpened to be used as a pen. It was rather splendid.

“What I also like is that the pictures are printed by digital technology. These are larger than the originals but the fidelity and faithfulness to the original is extraordinary. If you put them side by side it is almost impossible to distinguish them. Printing digitally is good for a hospital because the picture can be made to the right size and there are no worries about damaging the original. It’s also cheaper for the hospital because they are not having to buy the original.”

Despite the difficult issues Blake is tackling - old age, mental health, eating problems - the mood of this exhibition is upbeat. Culture can really help people, it says with humourous and humane conviction.

“Ah, being positive may be a character defect of mine,” Blake jokes. “I started off as a cartoonist and there is still humour in my drawings. I have occasionally been criticised for being too cheerful. But I hope these pictures aren’t just cheerful. They don’t dismiss a situation. Not that I think ageing is entirely cheerful. You have to get a balance of mood. I do believe art can help people but these are not, in some ghastly phrase, commissions to be therapeutic. I wouldn’t claim that. The people in some of my drawings are simply in strange situations which they are more or less coping with.”

Blake, whose drawings of Roald Dahl characters were used in a set of Royal Mail stamps this week, has illustrated more than 300 books. Later this year, his drawings will accompany the book Rosie’s Magic House by Russell Hoban, the brilliant American writer who died in London last month at the age of 86.

And people around Britain will also get the chance to see As Large As Life when it leaves London to tour right into 2013, going to seven different galleries including the Paisley Museum in Scotland. The exhibition - which has video interviews and a lovely children’s reading area decorated with Blake’s recent designs for wallpaper - is terrific, and the most eloquent testimony to the success of the art is that more and more hospitals are asking for his work.

“I remember going into a hospital late one evening,” says Blake, “and the night security an looked across and said 'it’s uplifting’ and I thought that’s all I need to know really.”

Quentin Blake will be in conversation with Christopher Frayling on 22 January at 2pm. For ticket information see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk. The exhibition opens on 12 January and runs until 15 April 2012.